


Grass Stains

by QueenHimiko



Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:05:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenHimiko/pseuds/QueenHimiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the 15th novel, while staying in Zefiel City, Lina and Gourry attend the local grape stomp. Warnings for het sex. Thanks for pharoah999 for her beta work!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grass Stains

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own "The Slayers," I just play in the sandbox.

They walked so closely together that occasionally, her hand would bump against Gourry’s, sending jolts of electricity from her stomach and to her spine. It was a pleasant feeling, even if it left her unsettled. She stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye. If touching her hand was having the same effect on him, he didn’t show it. And if he didn’t have those feelings, and she did, what did it mean?

Sometimes, she swore he was going to make a move. He could be so affectionate at times, so sweet. The moments were brief and fleeting. A touch of her hair, a gentle caress, or just being there while she cried. She had never felt so comfortable showing weakness in front of anyone, but he had a way of making her feel strong even when she was weak. Had a way of making her feel at peace and, though he never said as much, loved.

The moments were brief, yes, but they seemed to be increasing in frequency, especially since Milina and Luke had died. And more and more, she kept waiting for him to do something she didn’t dare voice to herself. She had thought it was happening when he announced he wanted to visit Zefiel City. Only it hadn’t. Then she thought that it would happen when they arrived in Zefiel City. Only it hadn’t. Two weeks later that thing she wanted from him, that thing that she didn’t dare voice, she was still waiting for.

While she was too afraid to voice it, her friends and family were not. She had been through the same conversation with so many different people that she could recite it in her sleep.

“So…you and Gourry?”

“So, what about us?”

“Come on, Lina, spill!”

“There’s nothing to spill. He’s my guardian. Don’t read anything pervy into it!”

“Lina, how long have you been traveling together again?”

Lina looked at the ground nervously. It was with a mix of feelings that she’d agreed to go to the Dionysial with him. First surprise that he even knew about Zefiel City’s grape stomping festival. Then she felt that same unnamed hope again. And then irritation with herself for feeling it. If he was so keen on her, wouldn’t he have made some move by now, especially now that she was back home?

Her hand brushed against his again, and this time he caught it, holding hers lightly as if testing the waters, seeing if she would pull away. Hope rose within her, drowning out her doubts and insecurities. This was a move she had been waiting for. Her breath caught in her throat and she fixed her eyes straight ahead as the strange feeling in her stomach grew. She wanted to feel it more.

He gripped her hand a little tighter as he asked, “So, what all happens at a Dionysial?”

Why should she be surprised? “The women of the village stomp grapes to make wine.” She said, keeping her voice as casual as possible, “There’s feasting. Carnival games. Music. The works.”

Couples would also go into the woods for some private time, but Lina decided not to bring that up.

“Are you going to stomp grapes?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Is that why you’re wearing a dress?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve never seen you wear one before.”

“I don’t usually.”

In fact, he couldn’t stop staring at her skirt. While it was of a modest length, thoughts of reaching his hands under it and caressing her beneath it enticed his mind. He took a deep breath and reminded himself to take things slowly. His relationship with Lina was something he did not want to mess up.

All the same, he wanted her badly. But he had to wait for the right time. If he moved too quickly he risked losing her forever, so he took things slowly. Perhaps, a little too slowly. Still. Both of them had been emotionally devastated after the loss of Luke and Milina, but Lina especially so. It was part of the reason he suggested visiting her family, to give her a break from life on the road and time to recover emotionally.

He comforted her as much as he could on the road, and held himself back from truly pursuing her. It didn’t seem right when she was emotionally battered and vulnerable.

Being in Zefiel City had been a balm to her nerves. She was more relaxed. She smiled more, she slept better. But the time still didn’t seem right. Her family was desperate to spend time with her after years apart. He wanted them to like him and to be on good terms with him, so he gave them some space. If Lina said “yes” he didn’t want them to resent him for filling her mind with wedding plans the moment she arrived home.

What he didn’t factor in was all of the friends she was reconnecting with. What he hadn’t expected was how busy with social calls she’d be when she got home. After spending most of their time each day with each other it was jarring to spend so much time apart. Strange as it seemed he missed her. So when he heard about a festival he figured he’d better ask her before someone else did.

And now, watching her more openly than he usually did, he wondered if it was finally the right time.

From ahead he could hear the dim sounds of music and jovial chatter. It got louder as the smells of grapes and crowds grew stronger. Soon the festival was in view. As they got closer one of Lina’s friends shouted, “You’re just in time!”

They walked a little faster as they saw that women were already being lifted into a vat full of grapes. He noticed Lina moving towards a platform where her friends who had not yet gotten into the vat were washing their feet and gathering their skirts to bunch them into the belt at their waist. He watched as Lina greeted her friends excitedly, and missed the feel of her hand in his as she let go.

Then Lina lifted the hem of her skirt and tucked it into her belt, leaving her exposed to the mid-thigh. He took a deep breath as he suddenly realized that there might be a dimension to the Dionysial he’d never expected as he saw more of her legs than he ever had in their years together. His arousal grew as she stepped into a bucket of water and started to wash her feet, moving up to her slender ankles and then her calves before trailing back down. Suddenly he was finding it hard to remember to breath.

When she finished, she moved towards the vat and he knew she was about to levitate herself in. Not when he was there. “Hey.” He said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “Need a lift?” 

She blushed, looking far too enduring. “I was just going to levitate…” she sputtered.

_What if she merely sees me as a friend?_ He worried to himself as he reconsidered whether or not it truly was the right time. “Well, why should you be the only one who gets to show off?” he asked casually.

She looked at him searchingly for a moment, “Okay.” She said quietly.

When he lifted her, there was a feel of her bare leg against his arm, warm and pleasant. The desire to reach his hands and explore returned. And then in a flash he had to let go, and she teetered for a moment uncertainly, blushing furiously, before setting her hands on her hips and stomping. A friend leaned to her and whispered something in her ear that caused the blush to deepen, something Gourry had not even thought possible.

He stepped back from the vat and struggled to keep his breathing steady. When he had heard of the Dionysial he’d had no idea it would be this stimulating. Something about the combination of the sweet smell of grapes and watching Lina laugh and dance with her friends with her skirts hitched up was pushing him towards the idea of ditching his self-control and taking her to the first private space he could find to finally claim her.

He needed to do something to regain his self-control. He should turn away, hunt down some food or something to drink. The thought was present but the motivation was lacking. Watching Lina was simply enthralling. Still, he reasoned, he didn’t want to ruin everything by pushing things too quickly. He took a deep breath, bound and determined to turn away when Lina swerved and playfully pushed at a friend, causing her skirts to rise even higher, briefly revealing what appeared to be a glimpse of her white cotton panties. 

He managed to hold down a strangled choking sound, but there was no way he was leaving now. He might miss something! Once again the urge to take her and run his hand up under her skirts asserted itself as images of the two of them engaged in sexual play flitted through his mind. 

The intensity of his arousal was disarming, leaving him feeling a bit like an awkward adolescent who had little control over such things. He managed to tear his gaze from Lina briefly to note that he was not the only man in the crowd paying rapt attention with a look of desire flitting across his features. And it didn’t just seem to be the men. The tangy scent of female arousal warred with that of the grapes. 

He returned his gaze to Lina, who was blushing again as another woman was whispering something into her ear. What would she think if she knew how aroused he was? Considering she was native to this city and had been to a few Dionysials, she had to have known that this outcome was a possibility. Was that why she had blushed when she accepted his invitation? Was she wanting to engage in that same erotic play he was thinking of? Dare he find a private place for them to find out?

Was it the right time?

Some of the other women noted that the grapes were fully crushed. Men started to gather around the vat to help them out. He saw Lina look hesitantly towards the edge of the vat, and he guessed that she was wondering if she should levitate or wait to see if he was going to get her. Deciding to be brave, he crossed the short distance to the vat, calling her name as he got there.

She smiled slightly, and trudged over to him and his anxiety lifted. Smiling was a good sign. Even better was when she reached for him. He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her out and over, whispering in her ear as he sat her down, “I enjoyed putting you in so much I thought I’d better take you out.”

Her eyes widened as she stood, her hands gently clasping his arms, his hands still around her waist. And even though they were in a crowd of people, they may as well have been the only ones around in each other’s mind. Until one of her friend’s broke the spell by calling, “Hey Lina, for someone who is just a friend you two sure seem cozy!”

“Hey Harriette, mind your own business!” Lina yelled as she turned in her direction, breaking the embrace.

Slightly annoyed, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him. She didn’t pull away. Her body resting against his felt nice and natural. “What now?” he asked.

“Huh?” she said.

“What do we do now that the grapes are stomped?”

Lina looked over to the platform, now crowded with women washing their feet. “There’s a stream in the woods.” She said, “I’d like to wash up there.”

For some reason she blushed as she added, “It’s too crowded there on the platform. And the water is probably very dirty by now.”

“Lead the way.” He said, his head light with disbelief over the ready pretense she’d come up with as they set off. He couldn’t believe Lina had spared him the embarrassment of finding a reason to be alone with her. Lina could hardly believe her own daring. She knew good and well what it meant when a man and a woman went off to the woods together after a grape stomp. Before she’d left home she had always held her nose disdainfully at those who made such liaisons. Stomping grapes was hardly any reason to get frisky.

But now that she was older, she couldn’t deny that there was something libidinous about the atmosphere. Unused as she was to wearing a dress she couldn’t help but feel a bit more exposed in it, especially as she revealed more than she usually did to belt it at her waist. The feel of the muscles rippling in Gourry’s arms as he held her briefly to lift her into the vat. Dancing in front of such a rapt audience, and being unable to resist noticing that Gourry only had eyes for her. Her friends stopped to comment to her about it every two minutes!

Was it because he was attracted to her? Or that she was the one he’d pledged to protect? Oh, how she wanted it to be the former! She could not ever remember being so wound up, so desperate for release! They walked together quietly, his arm companionably around her as the trees thickened. To their east Lina could hear the sounds of a couple heavily involved. Unobtrusively she tried to catch his eye to see if he noted anything. 

He was blushing. He had to have noted. She’d never met anyone with such good senses. Surely he couldn’t be as oblivious as he seemed half the time. Still, the niggling feeling that she had horribly misread him and was in for the disappointment of her life was not something that she could discard.

She sat down when the stream came into view and put her feet into it. Dirt and grass had clung to her sticky feet, and she washed those away along with the juice in the thankfully warm water. She waited quietly, waited for him to make a move. She’d gotten them here. Did he want to follow through? Or were they merely going to sit in silence before heading back to the festivities? Her stomach cringed at the latter option.

“So, what do we do now?” he asked, his voice low and quiet.

Her heart sank. He hadn’t figured it out? Or was he just not interested? 

Then he continued, the arm wrapped around her shoulder moving down so it rested on her hip, “Do we do that thing that the other couples in the woods are doing?”

“What thing?” she whispered as she lifted her head to face him, her heart racing.

“Don’t be coy,” he said, pulling her towards him, bringing her legs out of the stream. She went willingly, wrapping her arms around him, opening her mouth to receive him when he finally kissed her. “Do we do this?” he asked, momentarily breaking the kiss to whisper in her ear.

“Yes,” she hissed, unable to keep the desire from her voice, and she moved to claim his lips again, her breathing picking up as he lifted her fully into his lap so that she was straddling him. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around him, and he wasted no time putting his hands on her knees and moving them up her thighs, under her skirts and up to caress her hips.

The kiss deepened as she whimpered into his mouth, surprised by how good it felt to have her hips stroked. She’d always heard about lovers stimulating the breasts, but not the hips. She wondered why as he stroked her, his moves becoming more daring as the range of his fingers widened from the curve of her hips to her buttocks. She moaned into his mouth, wondering if this felt so good, then just what would it feel like when they finally moved to the breasts?

He moved his kisses to her neck, his breathing heavy with desire. She opened her eyes, and noted how strained he appeared as he started to moan her name between kisses. In that moment, it became so obvious to her that she had him wrapped around her finger that she felt little fear of rejection as she teasingly asked, “So, how long have you been in love with me?”

He froze, and then a look of such sweet vulnerability briefly flitted across his face before he composed himself. “I don’t remember how long. It’s been so long that I can’t remember ever not loving you, if that makes sense. May be when you defeated that Shabra monster? May be before, may be after,” he said, reaching a hand up to caress her cheek, “But yes, I love you, and I have for a long time.”

“Since Shabranigdu?” she whispered, “That long?”

He nodded. She shook her head, “That was two years ago! Are you telling me in all that time you’ve been in love with me and never done anything about it?”

“I kept you safe.” He said.

“Gourry!”

“I didn’t want to lose you.” He said quietly, catching her eyes with his so she could see how serious he was. “All I had was the Sword of Light, but it didn’t mean anything till I met you. Because then I had someone to protect. And when I lost the Sword of Light, it was okay, because I was still with you. And then we found the Blast Sword, but the only reason that sword has any meaning to me is the same one the Sword of Light had, keeping you safe. You’re all I have, Lina. And I didn’t want to have to stop traveling with you by telling you about my feelings if it made you uncomfortable. Getting to travel with you was what mattered.”

Her features softened, and she moved to run a hand through his hair, “May be you should have said something earlier. We could have gotten this out of the way with long ago.”

“Lina,” he said pleading as she untucked his shirt from his pants and put her hands underneath it, exploring his chest enthusiastically, “Lina, please…”

“’Lina, please,’ what?” she mimed deviously, enthused with a new sense of daring.

“You mean so much to me…” he said, attempting to be stern but failing as her chest massage wrestled a moan of pleasure. Dammit, it was hard to sound stern under her ministrations!

“And you mean a lot to me.” She said matter-of-factly, wondering just how far she could push him, “I’m not the type of girl to just do this with anyone.” She whispered into his ear before nuzzling at it.

“How…” he gasped, deciding to take a play from her book, “how long have you been in love with me?”

She pulled away and batted her eyes at him, “What makes you think I’m in love?”

He shifted, and suddenly she was on her back in the grass with him over her, unbuttoning her shirt. “I told you not to be coy.”

“What are you going to do to me?” she shot back, working hard to keep her excitement under control as he pulled her shirt open and started to caress her breasts.

He didn’t say anything, merely focused on her intently as he brought his mouth down to suckle at her nipple. She gasped, thrusting herself against him appreciatively. He reached a hand up back under her skirt and to her hips and pulled at her panties, bringing them down. She squirmed awkwardly, helping him to get them off.

He didn’t give a second thought to where he’d thrown them once he’d slipped them past her ankles. Instantly his hands were back up her skirt, this time moving between her legs, parting them, skimming the inside of her thigh before stopping at a far more intimate place. He inhaled, her scent in and of itself was arousing, and it only grew stronger as he parted her lower lips and felt their smooth skin, already damp and wet. 

Lina tangled her hands in his hair as he continued to suckle on her nipple while one hand worked her sex as the other caressed her hip. This was happening! They were finally doing this! There was something important she should say, but whatever it was was lost under the torrent of pleasure his touch was evoking.

Shamelessly she moaned and gasped and called his name, spurring him onward, warning him not to stop. It didn’t take long to get there, she had already been so wound up by the grape stomp. Soon she was inundated by waves of ecstasy, screaming and calling his name as she rode them.

It was when she was coming down, feeling calm and peaceful as she opened her eyes to see that he was undoing his pants that she remembered what she needed to say. “I love you.” She whispered.

He smiled, and caressed her cheek. “How much?”

“What do you mean ‘how much?’”

“Enough to spend the rest of your days with me?” he asked quietly.

She smiled. She’d been waiting for him to ask that. “Well, we’ve survived two years together. Why not a lifetime?”

He grinned, leaning forward to kiss her tenderly as he worked himself out of his pants. Her scent was stronger now, keeping him aroused and desperate for her. Marveling at how well everything had gone, he positioned himself at her entrance and pushed himself in slowly, dragging the experience of being joined with her for the first time as long as he could.

He leaned forward to kiss her again, moving slowly to begin with, enjoying how she pulsed around him. But slow and sweet was not her style. Soon she was spurring him to move faster, and he was not going to resist. He quickened his movements, pounding into her, working to get more stimulation. His eyes opened in surprise as he felt her spasm around him and he moaned. Apparently Lina was multi-orgasmic!

He couldn’t hold out much longer, not with her milking him so. Soon he was over the edge, coming within her, grasping her hips tightly as he did. He took a few deep, steadying breaths and then rolled over and pulled her to him. “I love you.” He whispered in her ear, wanting to hear her say it again.

She did. Quietly, but firmly, with the force of conviction that only Lina could put behind a sentiment as she traced patterns on his arm. “So, what now?” she asked.

“Hmm,” he said, contemplatively, “I’m busy plotting ways to steal you from your parents’ house so we can have another round.”

She punched him in the arm playfully, “Don’t worry about that, I’ll sneak into your hotel room tonight.”

“Oh?” he said, leaning up on one arm, “What will you be wearing?”

“And ruin the surprise? You’re just going to have to be patient!” she put a finger on his nose and then changed tracks, “But really, I guess we should get back to the festival before they come looking for us.”

He felt as though he had been splashed with cold water and he instantly started to do up the laces to his pants. “Is that something they do?”

“Hunt down couples who run off to the woods and bring them back out and engage in some ritual humiliation?” she asked solemnly as she buttoned up her shirt, “Yes.”

He wasn’t sure if she was serious or not, but he tucked in his shirt all the same as she found her panties and slipped them on. Strangely, watching her dress was just as erotic as watching her undress. But now was not the time to attend to such matters. As she stood up and straightened her clothes he wondered if she was really serious about sneaking into his hotel room that night and hoped she was. Exciting as making love in the outdoors was, having a bed and a place to completely disrobe her where he had the security of knowing they wouldn’t be caught was what he would prefer for their second time.

He stood up and brushed the grass off his clothes. “How do I look?” Lina asked, her skirt back beneath her knees, but stained with grass, her hair nicely tousled.

“Beautiful.” He said as he extended an arm. She hooked her arm through it, looking forward to rejoining the crowd and telling those gathered there that she was his. Then a thought hit him. “Will your folks be there?”

“Yes,” she said nervously.

“I guess we’d better tell them first.” He said as they walked arm in arm through the woods. “That we’re going to be married.” He added awkwardly.

She nodded, “And as soon as possible.”

He smiled, and patted her on the head, “As soon as possible.” He confirmed.

Indeed, when they got back to the festival it was useless to deny the fact that only things between mere friends had occurred there. The grass stains on both of their clothes told a different story. The knowledge that Lina Inverse had emerged arm in arm from the woods with her long term companion spread so quickly through the festival that even though they made no announcement it was understood that they were engaged. So when they did track down Lina’s parents, though they pretended to be in the dark, it was with knowing glances that they offered their congratulations.


End file.
